Feminist Group: Postcards with Butts on Them ‘Normalize Violence against Women’

Postcard display at a souvenir shop in Nice, France (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)The claims that these cards are somehow dangerous make absolutely no sense.

Feminists in France are trying to ban a line of postcards that display scantily clad women, claiming that the cards are not only “sexist” but also “normalise violence against women.”

One of the apparently controversial postcards shows a group of women wearing thong bathing suits, and another shows a woman in a thong riding a bicycle.

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None of the postcards shows or even insinuates any violent acts whatsoever — it’s just a bunch of butts — but a group called The Femmes Solidaires is saying that these butt cards are actually deeply dangerous. In fact, according to an article in the Telegraph, the group claims that the cards actually promote a “culture of rape” in which women are “sex objects that can be consumed and thrown away under the pretext of leisure and entertainment” and that they “normalise violence against women.”

The Telegraph reports that The Femmes Solidaires are encouraging their 10,000 members to report these postcards anywhere they see them being sold.

“They contribute to a culture of rape, impose a degrading image of women, and help legitimize and trivialize violence against women,” the group said in a social-media post, according to Reuters.

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Are postcards with naked butts on them a little crude? Yes, of course they are, but saying that a picture of a butt is going to “legitimize … violence” against women is completely insane.

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If these women want to show their butts to the world by modeling for one of these postcards, then fine. Every woman has her own butt, and every woman should also have the choice to decide what she does with that butt. Although I personally have made the decision to keep mine covered when I am in public, I also understand that other women may not have made the same choice. And how, exactly, does that affect me? Well … it doesn’t.

Let me repeat: I, as a woman, can report that I have been impacted absolutely zero by these other women’s decisions to (presumably) get paid to have their butts on postcards. My days are exactly the same with these naked butts around as they would be without them. In fact, I’m kind of shocked that this so-called feminist group doesn’t support the rights of these women to show their butts (presumably) for money if they want to do so.

The claims that these cards are somehow dangerous — that they actually normalize or legitimize violence against women — make absolutely no sense when you break them down. These women are actually saying that a perfectly normal, reasonable nonviolent man — who would not have ever harmed a woman otherwise — might see a picture of a butt and then suddenly think it’s okay to hit his wife. That a man — who would have otherwise been a perfectly good guy — saw one of these cards and thought it would be no big deal for another man to hit his wife. Sorry, but I really, really don’t buy that. In fact, I am pretty confident that not even a single act of violence against even a single woman has ever been committed because of one of these postcards. What’s more, I don’t think that a single act of violence against a woman could be prevented by simply removing the postcards. Men who assault women are trash human beings, and we must do all we can to prevent these men from assaulting women, but you’d have to be crazy to think that a butt postcard plays any role in any of this whatsoever.

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Would I buy one for myself? Hell no. I see far too many butts in some of you people’s vacation pictures on Instagram (and can you quit pretending that you’re really posting because of the inspirational quote you put below them?). I’m maxed out on butts. But to say that they should be banned is absurd — and saying that the reason they should be banned is because they might cause violence is even more so.

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